Paul Blobel

Paul Blobel (13 August 1894-7 June 1951) was a German SS commander who was responsible for carrying out the Babi Yar massacre as an Einsatzgruppen leader during World War II.

Biography
Paul Blobel was born in Potsdam, Prussia, German Empire on 13 August 1894, and he served in the Imperial German Army during World War I. He worked as an architect from 1924 to 1931, when he joined the Nazi Party, the SA, and the SS following the loss of his job. In 1933, he joined the Dusseldorf police force, and he was recruited into the Sicherheitsdienst in June 1934. In 1941, he took command of an Einsatzgruppen sonderkommando force during Operation Barbarossa (the invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II), and Friedrich Jeckeln ordered him to exterminate the Jewish population. He killed 3,000 Jews in the Zhytomyr Ghetto before working with Jeckeln and Walther von Reichenau's units to take part in the infamous Babi Yar massacre, killing 33,771 Jews. On 13 January 1942, he was relieved of his command for alcoholism, and he was sent to destroy all evidence of Nazi atrocities in Eastern Europe. In October 1944, Blobel headed an anti-partisan group in Yugoslavia. Up to 59,018 killings occurred under Blobel's orders, and he was convicted at the Einsatzgruppen Trial and executed by hanging on 7 June 1951.